


How Can You Be Sure?

by mar_dlr



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, POV Outsider, post-5x23
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 09:07:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11506185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mar_dlr/pseuds/mar_dlr
Summary: While waiting to be rescued or waiting to die, Felicity and Slade talk about Oliver.





	How Can You Be Sure?

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a short, self-indulgent drabble because Slade ships Olicity and I would love it if he and Felicity interacted more.

Felicity laid on the hard bench staring up at the ceiling. She supposed she should be grateful that she was there at all. And she was grateful. Because she was safe and so was her team. Her friends and her family. They had managed to make it to the ARGUS bunker in time to escape the explosions that rocked Lian Yu. She had lost all sense of time as they raced across the island, running away from the bombs that went off one by one around them. Felicity has no idea how long they’ve been down there and she doesn’t know how much longer they’ll have to stay there. But they are alive and she is grateful. Begrudgingly she had even thanked Slade for getting them there. But she still doesn’t trust him.

As if her mind had conjured him up, Slade approached her, sitting down on the floor beside the bench.

“You’re thinking about Oliver aren’t you?” he asked. “He could be dead.”

“No.” Felicity answered. “Oliver is alive.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I would know if he was gone. I would feel it. Oliver is alive. You can give up on him if you want but I won’t.” Felicity stubbornly replied.

“The kid has cheated death countless of times so you’re probably right. He’s probably racing across the island, turning over every stone to find you.” Slade said.

“To find us. All of us.” Felicity corrected.

"Yes, but you most of all.” Slade chuckled.

Felicity turned her head towards him. There wasn’t much light in the bunker but she could make out Slade’s profile. It seemed like he had more to say and it wasn’t like she was going anywhere. There was nowhere to go. They were all lucky to be alive, bruised, banged up, dehydrated and exhausted as they were.

“I was there the moment that darkness first entered Oliver’s soul. I watched him take his first life. Killing a man, it changes you. It twists your very core.” Slade continued. “Then he tried to kill me. Granted, I did try to kill him first. But he could have made a different choice. He had the cure right there. He could have injected me with it but instead he chose to drive an arrow into my eye. He chose darkness. And he chose it again and again during his time in Hong Kong and Russia.”

“What do you know about Hong Kong and Russia?” Felicity interrupted.

“More than you might think Ms. Smoak. While I was presumed dead I kept tabs on Oliver. I knew of his involvement with ARGUS and with the Bratva. I knew that he was slipping further and further into the darkness. And then he returned home. He began his crusade, delivering his own brand of justice. If he took a life or twenty, so be it. He chose darkness again. Until you entered the picture.”

“Me?”

“Yes. Slowly but surely you coaxed him out of the dark. You made him see there was another way. That he didn’t have to lose what was left of his soul. If Oliver hadn’t changed from the man he was when he first began his mission do you think he would have spared my life after I killed his mother?”

Felicity was silent but Slade took that as a no.

“You helped him find his humanity Ms. Smoak. And now he’s helping me find mine. He’s helping me find my son.”

Felicity’s eyes widened. She didn’t know that Slade had a son.

“Why are you telling me all of this?” she asked.

“Because you’re different. You’re special to him. Oliver has loved before. He loved Shado, although not as I loved her.” Slade said softly. “He loved Sara too. And I watched him look at that photo of Laurel over and over again. He loved her in a way as well. But it reached a point that it was closer to idealized infatuation than true love. But you, Ms. Smoak, Oliver loves you like he has never loved anyone or anything in this world. I knew it the night of the siege. It might have been a ruse, but it was also the truth. Oliver loved you then and he loves you now. And that is how I know that if Oliver is alive, he will stop at nothing to get to you.”

As if on cue the hatch above the bunker opened.

“Felicity!?” Oliver yelled.

Felicity smiled as she got up off the bench. It seemed that she and Slade were both right. Oliver was alive and he had come for her.


End file.
